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Enlightenment window manager

Hacker Approved

Ranked 3 of 30 window managers by recommenders

Free Linux window manager praised for its nostalgic look, light footprint and virtual desktops; critics cite crashes and a rough fit with modern workflows.

Free Linux window manager praised for its nostalgic look, light footprint and virtual desktops; critics cite crashes and a rough fit with modern workflows.

70 people gave an opinion

recommend it
51
criticize it
19
approval share
73%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 8 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: recommended
  2. December 2025: recommended
  3. January 2026: recommended
  4. February 2026: not recommended
  5. March 2026: not recommended
  6. April 2026: recommended
  7. May 2026: recommended
  8. June 2026: not recommended
  9. July 2026: not recommended
  10. August 2026: not recommended
  11. September 2026: recommended
  12. October 2026: recommended
  13. November 2026: recommended (month in progress)

Why it carries the badge

  • 51 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
  • 2.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
  • Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.

The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works

What people say about it

The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.

Why people recommend it

Each mark is one comment

  • Lightweight, low resource use

    “E is now a super-lightweight system compared with the mainstream environments that plauge our RAM chips today.”

    Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

    “it's better at a lot of things because it's fairly low-spec and doesn't require a terabyte of ram”

    Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

    “the core of the window manager doesn't have any kind of bloat or slowness”

    Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”
  • Attractive visuals with nostalgic appeal

    “The era 20 years ago (e.g. Enlightenment) was way more fun than the bland monotonic design we have these days”

    Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design”

    “It had really fancy visuals that worked on fairly slow hardware.”

    Comment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release”

    “Transparent eterms and tasteful backgrounds everywhere.”

    Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”
  • Hard to replace for longtime users

    “None of the other alternatives interest me, and I've tried them all.”

    Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

    “Nothing else I've used has hit the same seamless ease.”

    Comment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release”

What people warn about

Each mark is one comment

  • Crashes and instability

    “early versions weren't a model of stability, but that wasn't nearly as important as an X server or a Wayland compositor not crashing”

    Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

    “The novelty wore off in a week with Enlightenment's constant crashing”

    Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design”

    “I can't believe this crash ridden peice of WM Still exist”

    Comment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release”
  • Not lightweight; resource usage concerns

    “it was definitely not lightweight compared to many of the alternatives”

    Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

    “I loved using the environment but would regularly harangue him for being glib on resource usage.”

    Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”
  • Effects distract during daily use

    “after about 10 minutes the burning windows felt like they were getting in the way”

    Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design”

    “it always stopped to be good looking when it wasn't a screenshot anymore but a running process on my machine”

    Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

Other window managers people recommend

The four most recommended other window managers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.

Enlightenment window manager compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
Hyprland823371%121 mo4 ownersApproved
Rectangle for macOS67396%111 yr3 ownersApproved
Enlightenment window managerThis page511973%8—Approved
FVWM28488%825 yrs7 ownersApproved
AwesomeWM26293%1112 yrs3 ownersApproved
See all 30 window managers, ranked

What people said

40 of the 86 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“Nothing else I've used has hit the same seamless ease.”

RecommendsComment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release”

“It’s great to see the Rasterman himself still doing releases after all these years!”

RecommendsComment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release”

“It had really fancy visuals that worked on fairly slow hardware.”

RecommendsComment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release”

“It was so cool to see all effects and nice graphics.”

RecommendsComment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release”

“I can't believe this crash ridden peice of WM Still exist”

CriticizesComment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release”

“This is nice and all, but it doesnt fit my workflow”

MixedComment from 31 Oct 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28 Released with Many Improvements”

“E16 was the height of cool when it came out.”

RecommendsComment from 31 Oct 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28 Released with Many Improvements”

“the most complete ( although not complete ) UI ecosystem in C that I've seen”

RecommendsComment from 31 Oct 2026 in “Enlightenment 0.28 Released with Many Improvements”

“after about 10 minutes the burning windows felt like they were getting in the way”

MixedComment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design”

“xfce and Enlightenment should do a fusion become one project”

RecommendsComment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design”

“The novelty wore off in a week with Enlightenment's constant crashing”

CriticizesComment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design”

“I look back at my Enlightenment desktop with joy.”

RecommendsComment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design”

“The era 20 years ago (e.g. Enlightenment) was way more fun than the bland monotonic design we have these days”

RecommendsComment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design”

“Don't need to be so drastic, XFCE, Afterstep, windowmaker, Openbox, Enlightment”

RecommendsComment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop”

“AfterStep, Enlightenment and many others were really nice.”

RecommendsComment from 12 May 2026 in “Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes”

“Implementing all that was probably quite an achievement, even if I didn't like all the visual decisions.”

MixedComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“the core of the window manager doesn't have any kind of bloat or slowness”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“early versions weren't a model of stability, but that wasn't nearly as important as an X server or a Wayland compositor not crashing”

MixedComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“it was definitely not lightweight compared to many of the alternatives”

MixedComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“I really enjoyed it for the brief time I used it!”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“None of the other alternatives interest me, and I've tried them all.”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“it requires Connman and setting it up properly is a pain imo”

MixedComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“e16 was truly unique... honestly the best Linux desktop ever made”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“I used enlightenment for a bit and was very happy with it”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“In e, this is just a setting where the user gets to choose what their computer does.”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“the killer feature for me were independent virtual desktops accross monitors”

MixedComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“I always appreciated how you can simply attach to the enlightenment process at any point, and also upon a crash.”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“it's better at a lot of things because it's fairly low-spec and doesn't require a terabyte of ram”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“it always stopped to be good looking when it wasn't a screenshot anymore but a running process on my machine”

CriticizesComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“E13 was a great, simple, good looking WM I used for years.”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“I really appreciate that it's held true to its own core.”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“they went both visually rather tame and scope-creepy (own graphical libraries etc.)”

MixedComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“E is now a super-lightweight system compared with the mainstream environments that plauge our RAM chips today.”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“I'm happy people are still using and even improving Enlightenment.”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“Transparent eterms and tasteful backgrounds everywhere.”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“I loved using the environment but would regularly harangue him for being glib on resource usage.”

MixedComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“Looking at my old windows 98 machine and then at slackware Linux with enlightenment lured me to Linux”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“this unbelievable coolness working on my laptop”

RecommendsComment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16”

“I wish Englightenment and Xfce were together a single thing”

RecommendsComment from 27 Jan 2026 in “Xfwl4 – The Roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor”

“it was fun for a while in Enlightenment, but really not usable”

MixedComment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Ned: ImGui Text Editor with GL Shaders”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.